Perhaps nothing measures the imbalance of media
and political power in the United States better than the decision-making by
major news organizations about when to issue "corrections."

The bottom line is this: When the American Right is
offended, the "corrections" come fast and are sweeping, even in highly dubious
situations. Sometimes heads roll.

But when the American Left feels aggrieved, the
"corrections" are slow and grudging, often very narrow in scope and still
misleading. Nobody is likely to get punished.

That reality was demonstrated again Tuesday when the
New York Times "corrected" the context of a quote by former Republican House
Speaker Newt Gingrich that had been cited in a Monday column by Paul Krugman.
The liberal economist had referenced the Washington Post quoting Gingrich as
saying President "Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40
years."

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The Post and then Krugman paraphrased the context
as a reference to Johnson pushing through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which, in
turn, gave rise to Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, the Republican scheme to
exploit white animosities over the end of racial segregation to break the
Democratic grip on the South and bring those states into the Republican
column.

Without doubt, that is what happened. Southern white
voters and many working-class northern whites turned their backs on the
Democrats and helped usher in four decades of Republican dominance in national
elections. Ronald Reagan famously launched his general election campaign in 1980
with a speech advocating states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site
of the murders of three civil rights workers.

There also can be little doubt that Gingrich was
referring to Johnson's civil rights legislation. But Gingrich didn't appreciate
the spotlight on his frank admission about the politics of race, so he began
spinning a new context, insisting that his reference was to Johnson's Great
Society programs.

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However, that claim made little sense. After all, the
biggest accomplishment of the Great Society was Medicare, the popular
health-care program for the elderly, which even the Republicans these days
defend, most notably during the recent congressional health-care debate.

So, why would Gingrich claim that Johnson's passage
of Medicare and other social programs "shattered the Democratic Party for 40
years"?

The obvious answer is that Gingrich is obfuscating.
He simply realized how offensive his comment sounded and wanted to revise his
meaning and the Times quickly went along with this cover-up by issuing a
"correction."

(Gingrich's maneuver was similar to the preposterous
explanation by Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, who shouted out "baby killer"
when Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, was speaking on the House floor Sunday night.
Challenged about his outburst, Neugebauer insisted that he had said, "it's a
baby killer" in reference to the health-reform bill, not Stupak personally.)

Overly Sensitive

The New York Times, sensitive to accusations about
"liberal bias," seems always ready to accommodate "correction" demands from the
Right, no matter how incorrect they may be.

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In another example, the right-wing Washington Times
demanded and got a "correction"
for describing it as a newspaper "decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama," in the
context of a New York Times article about Washington Times' editorials that
compared President Barack Obama's health care plans to Nazi euthanasia policies.

The Washington Times insisted that its news columns
were objective and independent from the editorial opinions and thus wrested
from the New York Times a "correction" stating "the article was referring to
[the WT's] opinion pages, not to its news pages."

The truth, however, is that the Washington Times
founded and funded by right-wing Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon has had a long
history of mixing political propaganda into its news columns, an approach that
hasn't stopped. Yet, the New York Times felt compelled to bend over backwards
with a "correction." [See Consortiumnews.com's "WTimes, Bushes Hail Rev.
Moon."]

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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